"Miss Russell?" I took my eyes from Holmes and looked at the doctor's earnest young face. "Welcome back, Miss Russell. You had us worried for a while, but you're going to be fine now. You have a broken collarbone, and you lost a great deal of blood, but other than one more scar for your collection there will be no lasting effect. Would you care for some water? Good. The sister will help you. Just a bit at a time until you get used to swallowing again. Mouth taste better now? Fine. Mr. Holmes, you may have five minutes. Don't let her try to talk too much. I shall see you later, Miss Russell." He and the nurse went out, and I heard his voice going down the hallway.
"Well, Russell. Our trap caught its prey, but it nearly took you with it. I had not intended quite such a generous sacrifice."
I licked my dry lips with a thick tongue.
"Sorry. Too slow. You hurt?"
"By no means, you reacted as quickly as I thought you might. Had you been slower her bullet might indeed have seriously disarranged my insides, but thanks to your father's ideas concerning women on the cricket field, your good left arm saved me from anything more than a bruised rib and a missing flap of skin the size of your finger. I am the one to apologise, Russell. Had I been faster to my feet the gun would not have gone off at all, and you would have an intact collarbone, and she would be sitting awaiting charges."
"Dead?"
"Oh yes, very. I shan't trouble you with the details now, because the white-coated people would not be happy if I raised your pulse, but she's dead and Scotland Yard is happily rooting about in her papers, finding things that will keep Lestrade busy for years. To say nothing of his American colleagues. That's right, shut your eyes for a while; it is bright in here." His voice faded. "Sleep now, Russ, I shan't be far away." The hard hospital bed rose up and wrapped itself around me. "Sleep now, my dear Russell."
Low voices woke me in the afternoon. The room was still dim, and my shoulder and head throbbed beneath the stiff dressings. A nurse bent over me, saw that I was awake, thrust a thermometer into my mouth, and started doing other things to various parts of me. When my mouth was free again I spoke. My voice sounded strange to my ears, and the pull of muscles sent twinges into my collarbone.
The routine was all too tediously familiar.
"A drink, please."
"Certainly, Miss. Let me raise the bed for you." The low voices had stopped, and as she cranked the handle my field of vision gradually dropped from the ceiling above the bed to include the bed itself and my visitors, rising from their chairs in the corner. The nursing sister held the glass for me, and I pulled methodically at the straw, ignoring the hurt of swallowing.
"More, Miss?"
"Not now, thank you, sister."
"Right-o, ring if you need me. Ten minutes, gentlemen, and see you don't tire her."
"Uncle John, your moustache is almost back to normal." (Doddering old fool. .)
"Hallo, dear Mary. You're looking a sight better than you were three days ago. They're good doctors here."
"And Mr. Holmes. I am happy to greet you more civilly than the last time we met." (Mycroft's expression of jovial bonhomie seemed faintly menacing.)
"Please, Miss Russell, I hardly think that formality is necessary or even appropriate, what with being welcomed into your boudoir and all." The fat face smiled down at me, and I felt so tired. What were they doing here?
"Brother Mycroft, then. And Holmes. You have had a rest since the morning, I think. You look not so strained."
"I have. There is a vacant room next to yours, and I have made use of it. How are you feeling, Russell?"
"I am feeling as though a large piece of lead passed through me and took a considerable quantity of myself with it. How do the white-coats say I am?" (Why didn't they go?
Perhaps it is the painkillers, dulling my interest.)
Watson cleared his throat.
"The bullet passed through the back of your neck, missing the spinal column by — by enough. It did go through your collarbone and nick various blood vessels before leaving the front of your shoulder and continuing on, to lodge finally in Miss Donleavy's heart. The surgeons have pieced together the clavicle, though there is considerable damage to the muscles in that area. And," his face prepared me for a feeble attempt at a joke to cheer the patient, "I fear you will never care to dress in anything other than high-necked clothing. Though I think you had already resigned yourself to that. Where on earth did you pick up all that scar tissue?"
"Watson, I think — " Holmes began.
"No, Holmes, it's all right." I was so utterly weary, and Watson was peering down into my face with what I supposed was loving concern, so I closed my eyes against the brightness. "It was an accident some years ago, Uncle John. Ask Holmes to tell you the story. I think I'll sleep for a while now, if you don't mind."
They filed out, but I did not sleep. I lay and felt the fingers of my unresponsive right hand, and thought about the walls of Jerusalem, and what my mathematics tutor had taken from me.
I was in that hospital for many days, and a degree of movement gradually returned to my arm and neck. I could not abide the thought of my aunt, and indeed after I was conscious I refused to have her in my room. After some discussionit was arranged that I go home to the spare room in Holmes' cottage, to the great delight of Mrs. Hudson and the concern of the hospital authorities, who disliked the distance, the remoteness, and the poor road I should have to travel. I told Holmes I wished to go with him, and let him fight it out for me.
Once there I ate obediently, slept, sat in the sun with a book, and worked at restoring strength to my hand, but it was an emptiness. I did not dream, though often during the day I would find that I had been staring off into the distance unblinking for great chunks of time. When I had been in the cottage for two weeks I went to the laboratory and stood looking at the clean floor and the restored shelves. I touched the two bullet holes in the walls, and felt nothing but a vague unease; I could only think how bare and cold the tile looked.
Summer wore on, and my body gained strength, but there were no suggestions that I move back to my ownfarm. Holmes and I began to talk, short, tentative discussions about Oxford and my reading. He was away a great deal, but I did not ask why, and he did not tell me.
One day I came into the sitting room and saw the chess set laid out on a side table. Holmes was working at his desk and looked up to see me standing there with what must have been an expression of extreme loathing on my face as I stared at those thirty carved figures, the salt cellar, and the nut-and-bolt king on their teak and birch squares. I turned on him.
"For God's sake, Holmes, haven't you had enough chess for one lifetime? Put it away, get rid of it. If you wish me to leave your house I will, but don't ask me to look at that thing." I slammed out of the room. Later in the afternoon I came back through to see its box and board sitting closed up but still on the table. I said nothing but avoided that part of the room. They remained on the table. I remained in the cottage.
I began to find Holmes more and more irritating. The smell of his pipe and the odours from his laboratory plucked at raw nerves, and I retreated outside or behind the closed bedroom door. His violin sent me on walks into the downs that left me trembling with exhaustion, but I did not go back to my house. I began snapping irritably at him, but his response was invariably reasonable and patient, which only made me worse. Rage began to stir but lacked the consummation of open battle, for Holmes would not respond. In the last week of July I made up my mind to leave the cottage, gather my belongings, and return to Oxford. Next week.